The map to the right is interactive. Hold your mouse pointer over the highlighted places and they will be identified.

Some of the places shown have a web page and can be accessed by clicking on them.

Los Angeles

This section really should be headed Los Angeles airport. I've been through LA five times but
never really seen the city. The airport is the reason I went there (four times to get to/from
Disneyland and once just to fly on as part of a fly drive).

The main comment I used to to make about driving to LA airport is ........... dont do it ! The
roads and traffic loading have to be seen to be believed. I did it once in 1990 - and I vowed "never again". However,
if you have no other choice or you have particularly strong masocistic tendencies, then I would
like to pass on the following :-
Get an up to date detailed road map before you go.
Make sure somebody in your party can read a map very well.
Check carefully where you are going and locate it on the map before you travel. We were dropping a hire car off and assumed it would be at the airport, but had to drop it some considerable way away.
Even with the all of the above in place, dont do it (if you dont have to).

That was my advice until the summer of 2007 when because of our holiday plans I was faced with no choice but to drive through LA. We came down on Highway 101 from the Pacific Coast Highway - route 1, all across LA to DisneyLand. After I had dropped off the family I had to return the van to LA airport - the other side of the city ! I followed my advice above about getting a map and planning my route carefully and it was easy. Sure the traffic was heavy but you see heavy traffic all over the place.

Why then my 'at the time heartfelt advice' above ? Well thinking back, I wrote that text in about 1996 some 6 years after the original event and I think the constant retelling of how heavy the traffic was by all the other none driving members of the 1990 party had warped my memory, when I think back now, the 1990 drive does not seem that bad. So sorry LA for bad mouthing you all these years.
Web site visitor postIn L.A., perhaps the finest botanical garden in the W. Hemisphere
exists, and it is pretty cheap to visit. It is web-listed everywhere
under "The Huntington Library," because it is contiguous with that
famous venue--home of a Gutenberg Bible and some first editions, not to
mention Mark Twain's original manuscript from the Prince and Pauper.
Despite the "Library" name it is also the home of a gallery with
important Gainsboroughs, Romneys, Lawrences, Constables, Stuarts, etc.
"The Blue Boy" and "Pinkie" are there. There are 40 acres of gardens.
This was the favorite hobby of a late 19th century scion, Henry H., of
one of the famous California railroad barons families (others besides
his uncle C. P. Huntington, were Crocker, Stanford and Hopkins). The
cactus garden alone is six acres and magnificent. It is all over the
web, so I need not go on. Readers should pay close attention to the
"hours open," as it will depend on the day of the week and the time of
year.
Grant G